It wasn't all that long ago when what happened in the fourth quarter of Toronto's 110-100 win over the Pistons – a hard foul followed by a minor dustup in which no punches were thrown and no players were ejected – wouldn't have been a footnote to an NBA game.
After Friday's loss, though, Stan Van Gundy and Andre Drummond – the player who administered the hard foul on Toronto's James Johnson and one of four who was hit with a technical foul, Drummond also assessed a flagrant foul – were peppered with questions about the intent and deeper meanings.
Was it good, Van Gundy was asked, that one of your players showed fight?
"Yeah. We need to show it before we get down 20," Van Gundy said. "We need to show it throughout the game."
"Emotions were running high," Drummond said. "It happens. It's basketball. There's no hard feelings. I shook his hand after the game. It's all part of the game."
The Pistons had plenty of reasons for their emotions to be running a little high, but start with this: They've now lost 12 straight games at The Palace and, this time, the decibel level for celebratory Raptors moments was uncomfortably high from hundreds of fans who crossed the border with banners, flags and Raptors jerseys in tow.
"We've just got to do a better job to get our fans back out here again," Drummond said. "Simple."
Figuring out how to start doing that better job: complex.
Van Gundy said, "We had absolutely no defensive will or resolve whatsoever. Sixty points in the paint. You're not doing anything defensively when you give that up."
A few moments later, he softened his critique ever so slightly. Toronto came into the game No. 3 in the NBA in offensive efficiency – trailing only the last two Pistons opponents, the Clippers and Mavericks. Probably no coincidence the Pistons suffered their three highest-scoring opponent games of the season: 113, 117 and 110.
"We've played really good teams, so we've been exposed," Van Gundy said. "To say you've gotten worse, it's probably more accurate to say that our defensive weaknesses have been exposed."
"They have a great team," D.J. Augustin said of the Raptors, now an East-leading 21-6. "They have some shooters, some good guards that find people and some really good big people. They played well tonight and we didn't get stops."
Except they did, at least for the first 15 to 18 minutes of the game. That's where the sort of chicken-or-the-egg thing that's plagued the Pistons all year popped up. Maybe they were playing well defensively to that point – they led 41-30 three minutes into the second quarter and had the Raptors shooting in the low 40s – because their offense was giving their defense a fighting chance, scoring often enough that they weren't constantly backpedaling in transition.
The Pistons were shooting over 50 percent at that point, but they managed to score only 11 points over the last nine minutes of the second quarter and it got worse as it went along. They missed 9 of 10 shots to close the half, by which time Toronto had made the 11-point lead completely evaporate. It wasn't hard to find a link from the start of Detroit's offensive struggles to the start of Toronto's offensive surge.
The one thing the Pistons did consistently well in the first half: protect the basketball, committing just two turnovers. That ended, emphatically and abruptly, after halftime.
"We started off the second half just turning it over – travel, offensive foul," Van Gundy said. "I thought in the first half we played pretty good offense."
Four turnovers in the first two minutes of the third quarter, seven for the period. The Raptors are too good in transition and made them pay, scoring 15 points off of their 11 turnovers.
"We can't do that, especially against a team like that," Augustin said. "They take advantage of turnovers and we've just got to take care of the ball better and play smarter."
Van Gundy sees signs of progress offensively. Brandon Jennings is beginning to play at his mid-November level, before a thumb injury cost him three games and set him back. He finished with 22 points and eight assists in 31 minutes. Greg Monroe got his assortment of post moves cooking, finishing with 17 points. And Kentavious Caldwell-Pope hit 4 of 6 3-pointers, finishing with 18.
With the flurry of offensive powerhouses now behind them, maybe the Pistons will get a more accurate gauge of just where they stay on both ends of the floor in the days ahead.
"I don't think we took a step back," Drummond said. "I just feel it's a stepping stone. We're getting better. We don't expect things to come overnight. Nobody likes to lose. We're going to continue to work hard each and every night. We're just going to keep fighting."